Candy Counting

Do you know how many M&Ms are in a typical bag? How many of each color? Is each bag always the same? These are just some of the questions we are going to answer with this activity. To complete this project you must read and complete each step below in the order they are given. Do not skip any steps.

Counting Your M&Ms:

1. BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR BAG OF M&Ms:
   1. Write the label: My Name & Counts and YOUR NAME on the very bottom of the sheet of paper provided to you. See the sample below.
   2. Write the following labels on the bottom of your sheet of paper leaving room above each color to stack the appropriate M&Ms: Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Brown and Blue. Make sure you put these in the same order as listed below to make it easier when we get to the steps using Excel. See the sample below.
2. Open your bag of M&M's and sort them by color on your paper creating a graph by stacking your M&Ms by color on your paper as shown in the example below.
3. Count your totals by color and write your totals on your sheet of paper. After you have written your totals on your paper, put your M&Ms into the bag provided. The candy is yours to keep but do not eat it in class!!

	Red	Yellow	Orange	Green	Brown	Blue
My Name & Counts: YOUR NAME GOES HERE

Recording & Totaling the Class M&Ms:

1. OPEN EXCEL and create a new workbook following the directions below:
   1. Type the title Candy Counting in cell A1. Select cells A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1, G1 & H1 and then click on Format > Format Cells > Alignment and put a check mark next to Merge Cells. Then, center your title.
   2. Add the following column headings to row 2 in the cells indicated:
      A2: Student Name (literally type Student Name NOT your name!)
      B2: Red
      C2: Yellow
      D2: Orange
      E2: Green
      F2: Brown
      G2: Blue
      H2: TOTAL
   3. Change the font color and/or background color of the cells to match each M&M color. For example, either change the font color or background color of cell B2 to red, cell C2 to yellow, etc.
   4. Put your name in cell A3 and record your totals for each color in cells B3 through G3. SAVE YOUR WORK as YOUR NAME - CANDY. Your spreadsheet must be named as directed - do not create another name! Please stand up behind your chair when your are done with this step.
   5. Once everyone is done up to step 4, take your totals with you and move to the next computer number where a student in your class sits and add your name to the next row and record your totals. SAVE THE SPREADSHEET and stand up behind the chair. Continue moving from computer to computer adding your name & totals to each spreadsheet until you return to your computer. Once you are back at your computer SAVE YOUR WORK one more time just to be sure it is saved.
   6. Now we're going to calculate totals for each student. You will be using 5 different methods for adding totals to a student. Do NOT just do the same method on each student.
      1. For the first student (which should be YOU), go to cell H3 and enter =B3+C3+D3+E3+F3+G3 and then press the Enter key. Did this calculate the total?
      2. For the second student, go to cell H4 and enter =SUM(B4,C4,D4,E4,F4,G4) and then press the Enter key. Did this calculate the total? Note the differences between the formuas in step 6.1 compared to step 6.2.
      3. For the third student, go to cell H5 and enter =SUM(B5:G5) and then press the Enter key. Did this calculate the total? What do you think the colon (:) in the formula means?
      4. For the fourth student, go to cell H6 and press the Auto Sum Key which is found on the Standard Toolbar and then press the Enter key. What displayed in your cell when you pressed the Auto Sum Key? Did this calculate the total?
      5. Now, we're going to add the totals to the remaining students by copying the formula in Step 6.4 above to the remaining cells. To do this:
         • Select cell H6
         • Hold the mouse over the little square in the bottom right corner of the cell and drag downwards until all cells where you want the formula applied are highlighted
         • Release the mouse and the formula will copy into each cell highlighted changing the cell addresses to match the row it is on. Check the formula in the row of the last student in the class and see what's there
         • Did you notice that no matter how we entered the formula to calculate the total that we started with the equal sign (=)?
   7. Now we are going to add some totals and calculations for the whole class:
      1. Skip one line after the last student and in Column A enter the label Class Totals. Then press the Tab Key and go to Column B. Now add up each column - we want the total number of Red M&Ms for the class and the total Yellow and the total Orange, etc. and we want the total of all M&Ms for the class. As an example, if you had 10 students in your class, the formula in cell B15 which would total all of the Red M&Ms for the class would be =SUM(B3:B12) because B3 is the cell address for Red M&Ms for the first student in the class and B12 is the cell address for Red M&Ms for the last student in the class. Note: This is not the exact formula you would use since you will probably have more than 10 students! Once you have the formula for column B you can use the method we used in step 6.5 above to copy this to the other columns just dragging to the right rather than dragging down.
      2. SAVE YOUR WORK
      3. Now we are going to calculate the MEAN (we usually refer to this as the average), MEDIAN (what's the middle number in the series) and MODE (what's the number that occurs the most in the series) for each of the colors.
         1. In the row after Class Totals, enter the label MEAN in column A and press the Tab Key to go to column B. To calculate the Mean in Excel we use the AVERAGE function. The AVERAGE function is formatted just like the SUM function we have been using. For example, if you had 10 students in your class, the formula you would enter to calculate the MEAN would be =AVERAGE(B3:B12). Note: This is not the exact formula you would use since you will probably have more than 10 students and you may have more or less blank lines! Once you have the formula for column B you can use the method we used in step 4e-v to copy this to the other columns just dragging to the right rather than dragging down.
         2. Repeat what you did for MEAN in the next two rows but calculating MEDIAN and MODE instead of MEAN. The functions for MEDIAN and MODE are MEDIAN(BeginningCell:EndingCell) and MODE(BeginningCell:EndingCell)
         3. The last calculation we're going to do is a percentage to show what percentage of the total each color in the bag is. We are going to use the Class Totals row for this calculation. First in the row below the Mode row, enter Percents in column A then tab over to Column B. Enter the formula to calculate the percentage of Red M&Ms to the total number of M&Ms. Hint: Divide (use the slash / for division) the number of Class Totals Red M&Ms (Column B) by the Total Class M&Ms (Column H) - e.g., if the Class Totals are on row 15, the formula you would enter for the percentage calculation of Red M&Ms would be: =B15/H15. This will give you a decimal answer and we want to show this as a Percentage - to do this click on the Percent Button on your toolbar. Calculate percents for all of the M&M columns (B through G).
      4. SAVE YOUR WORK